ACCORDING to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the oceans are warming [1]. But the IPCC does not explain the underlying physical mechanism, the IPCC does not explain from first principles how the oceans warm.
In 2000, in a short article for Science and Technology Magazine, a respected oceanographer, the late Robert E. Stevenson wrote that the popular scientific consensus that greenhouses gases were causing the oceans to warm was incorrect because infrared radiation from greenhouse gases heats only the top few millimetres of the ocean and as a consequence is soon dissipated by evaporation [2]. According to Dr Stevenson, it is only the sun that can warm the oceans.
Indeed incoming solar radiation in the visible spectrum* is mostly short-wave radiation and it is generally accepted, including by those who swim in the ocean, that this radiation can penetrate a significant distance into the water column and is stored as heat.
Physicists that specialize in quantifying heat transfer will generally concur with Dr Stevenson. They explain that evaporation, conduction and long-wave infrared radiation (for example from greenhouse gases) are all surface heat transfer effects. That is, they only heat or cool at the very surface of the water.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.